

















ROCK-FLOWER 


















From a Drawing by 

John Butler Yeats 







ROCK-FLOWER 


BY 

YW \ JEANNE ROBERT FOSTER 

M 



BONI 6? LIVERIGHT 


PUBLISHERS 


NEW YORK 



COPYRIGHT, 1923, 
BY BONI & LIVERIGHT 



©CI.A698575 

POINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OP AMEEICA 


MAR 




( 



THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND 
JOHN BUTLER YEATS, R.H.A. 



CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I. JOHN BUTLER YEATS. 3 

II. SONGS OP EVIN. 5 

Portrait. 7 

Your Song. 9 

Upon the Sea. 10 

Wild Cherry . n 

Margot’s Song. 12 

Between Sleep and Waking. 13 

Waking in Darkness. 14 

The Street-Player. 15 

The Mirror. 16 

The Escape. 17 

Loneliness. 18 

Full Moon. 21 

The Singing Mask., . 22 

Two Mirrors. 23 

The Memory. 24 

I Bend Down to Life. 25 

The Dark Lady. 26 

The Bell-Branched Tree. 28 

To A Lover. 29 

VlLLANELLE. 31 

The Street-Sweeper. 32 

Narcissus. 33 

Prayer. 34 

Roses and Rain. 35 

Rose Leaves. 36 

The Grey Land. 37 

III. VERSES FOR JAPANESE PRINTS 

A Pair of Lovers. 41 

Moronobo 

vii 































PAGE 

A Courtesan. 4 2 

Yeishi 

A Woman Seated on a Verandah. 43 

Utamaro 

A Young Girl. 44 

Sukenobu 

Two Lovers. 45 

Koriusai 

The Courtesan Hana-oji with Attendants .... 46 

Kiyonaga 

The Courtesan Hana-oji Looking Over the Sumida 47 

Shuncho 

Two Lovers in the Fields; Spring Cuckoo .... 48 

Koriusai 

Ladies and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind.49 

Toyokuni 

IV. THE WAY DOWN TO THE SEA 

The Way Down to the Sea. 53 

V. CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI 

Constantin Brancusi. 59 

VI. WINDS IN WILD GRASS 

What You Shall Say. 65 

The King o’ Spain’s Daughter. 66 

The Faery Lady. 67 

When The Bees Swarm. 69 

When You Were Tinker Paudeen. 71 

Saint Yves. 73 

The Yellow Violet. 75 

Marie La Rose. 75 

Apples. 77 

“What Will Ye See in the Shulamite”. 78 

Lost Spring. 79 

Are There Not Other Regions Than This Isle?. . 81 

In The Muse’s Hollow Hill. 82 

I Saw My Love Go By. 83 

Into Dimness. 84 

Elemental. 85 

Michael Collins. 87 

The Christmas Tree. 89 


Vlll 


























PAGE 

The “Winter Song”. 91 

Consolation. 92 

Maud Gonne. 93 

Ezra Pound. 94 

Oscar Wilde’s Tomb in Pere Lachaise. 95 

Certain Paintings. 96 

VII. PATTERNED CLOTHS 

The Masker.101 

How Much Is Illusion?.102 

For Lover. 103 

Petition.104 

When I Awake.105 

Reincarnation.106 

Tears.107 

Sound of Autumn.108 

Rain in December.109 

VIII. THREE COLORS OF THE MOON 

The Eye of The Beholder.113 

Blue.114 

Crimson.116 

Black.118 


IX 
















































ROCK-FLOWER 


t 




4 




I 



















JOHN BUTLER YEATS 
“Alas, for the wonderful yew forest! ,f 
We shall remember him 

As a man who had a little in him of the men of all 
time. 

We shall remember him — 

This tall, lean-shouldered, witty Irishman, 

Master of the art of conversation, 

Jesting with us in his high-pitched Irish voice, 

That lilted to a delicate string 
Beyond our hearing. 

“Shakespeare was a kindly man,” he often said. 

John Yeats was a kindly man 
Who gave lavishly of himself 
As if life had no end. 

Around him gathered 
The tangible aroma of life 
Full-flavored with intense living. 

“Ireland is kind,” he said. 

“She has many faults, but I feel about her 
As I do about Heaven. 

If Heaven were a perfect place it would bore me. 

I like to think of Heaven as a place with discords; 

As a beautiful orchestration with Love as master of the 
music.” 


3 


“Montaigne said” — that phrase was often on his lips. 
Stories of wits and poets and artists, 

Memories of Samuel Butler, John O’Leary, and Dowden, 
Brilliant debris of irrecoverable personality. 

“The artist is the only happy man,” he told us. 

“Art springs from a mood of divine unreason. 

Unreason is when a man cannot be at peace with ex¬ 
ternal conditions.” 

We shall remember him intimately 

As we knew him — his room, his pipes, his drawings. 

We shall remember him sitting at his easel, 

Keen-eyed, young, eager to live a thousand years, 
Unwearied by life, 

Sheltered beneath the green tree of his own thoughts. 

We shall remember him 

Ripening like an apple in quiet sunshine, 

Responsive to human affection, 

And — patient of our human limitations — 

Writing under his own portrait 
(Painted from his reflection in a mirror), 

“Myself seen through a glass darkly.” 


4 


SONGS OF EVIN 


“I bring a branch of Evin’s apple 
tree, 

In shape alike to those you know: 
Twigs of white silver are upon it, 
Buds of crystal with blossoms.” 

































































































































































- 












































































PORTRAIT 


Subtle, sophisticated and perverse, 

And innocent, and like a careless child — 

This much I keep of you, a moth-wing kiss 
Upon my shoulder lightly in an hour 
When mirth grew hushed and pallid, drooping lids 
Shut out alike the candles and the dawn. 

This grace I have of you, a thrust, a wing 
Into a swaying space between two worlds 
Upon whose verge I tremble and perceive 
Arches of gloom where beauty vanishes. 

The thought of you ensnares my mind; the thing 
I search for still escapes. I know there are 
Currents that flow in Being that elude 
The song, the marble. (If Art satisfies 
More than the moment, why, the sense is dulled 
That listens; music vanishes and leaves no trace.) 

I look to find your impress on the world, 

Your color in the sun, your voice in winds, 

Your warmth within the earth. You are not there, 
But cling like the Rock-flower upon my mind 
Where all besides is frost and barrenness. 

I cannot quite perceive you of Myself 
There is some other who must make you plain, 

And that one lacking, why, I still must come 


Groping to find you, waiting to draw near 
Until Myself has vanished and I see. 


There was a willow tree at St. Germain 
And pointed yellow leaves upon the ground, 

Cool avenues of dusk and flames of flowers. 

The day we walked there, suddenly I walked 
With Death, not you, and could not find you there. 


Your Spring is Autumn. In your eyes, I see 
That your desire is as a folded seed 
Of what may be but not upon this earth. 

This globe is old; it has outlived its youth, 

And we, who see Time’s falling withered flowers 
Are of another Spring. 

There must be finer ways 
Of Being that we found. Could beauty mean 
So little that our petty cowardice 
Is all we lift to meet the naked dream? 

Let there be no more words. I find a dawn in you 
Whereof no man may speak ... let that suffice. 


8 




YOUR SONG 


There was a song that I had made for you. 

I am too filled with wonder now to find 
How the words go. I think the way of it 
Was like a flower — but no, I half forget — 

Perhaps ’twas like a palace or a tomb 
Curled close with ivy, or like some wild thing 
That runs away and feels the sucking breath 
Of the hounds close behind ... I have forgotten it. 


9 


UPON THE SEA 


I hold awhile 

Your half-forgetful smile, 

Your voice that woke my mind, 

When in your tone, 

As faint strings on the wind, 

Your mother spoke 

And within me awoke 

Another mother talking with your own. 

And I shall keep 
Until I fall asleep 
For the last time, 

An hour like a sweet rhyme; 

The hour you said to me 
Drowsed between sleep and rest: 

“I smell the fragrant sea 
Upon your breast.” 


io 


WILD CHERRY 


Branches of wild cherry! 

My senses reeling on the honey-sweet odour. 

Brief Spring, brief love, and again 
Branches of wild cherry; 

Spring succeeding spring 
But not love again. 

Life, you are a poor barterer. 

You give a whole year for a handful of white petals, 
Four seasons for one honey-sweet bough — 

A branch of wild cherry 
Swept bare by the first wind. 

You give many years — a lifetime — 

For a few kisses, a few broken words. 


ii 


MARGOT’S SONG 


His words were honey-sweet 
And they fell upon my ear 
As the music of the lark 
In the hightide of the year. 

His kisses drowned my lips 
And I swooned for love away 
When he circled me around 
Arm to arm, till break of day. 

His cheek was soft as silk 
And the trembling of my mouth 
When his rain of kisses fell, 

Was like leaves in August drouth. 


12 


BETWEEN SLEEP AND WAKING 


There was a whirlwind, Pierrot, 

And my feet dancing. 

Are you at last flesh and blood? 

There was silence 

And a great wind, Pierrot, 

Blown shapes of sand. 

Let my fingertips close your eyes, Pierrot; 
Let my kisses still your lips. 

Tear off your mask! 


WAKING IN THE DARKNESS 


His quiet breathing while he slept 
Was all that I might keep: 

He could not give himself away 
Wholly to life in sleep. 


14 


THE STREET-PLAYER 


As a blind child stumbles along the street 
Toward the street-player tinkling his guitar, 
Mad to touch hand to hand, the unknown source 
Of melody, I stumble toward you, Love. 

Blind to the world about me, aware only 
Of the one passionate rhythm in my blood, 

I lift blind eyes, stretch out entreating hands 
And meet — the silence. 

Love, the Street-Player, 

Tinkles his song awhile and then goes onward. 


THE MIRROR 


At last I recognize Myself. 

Having seen strangers here so long, 
Sight startles at the identity 
It sought. 

Beloved, you are beautiful. 

Why should I wait so long 
Finding you only 
In my lover’s eyes? 

Yet stay — 

This reflection 
Is the last mask. 


THE ESCAPE 


Let us bend over a pool 
And slip off the familiar flesh. 

Look! 

I am Apollo; 

There are shining curls on my forehead. 

You are Daphne, 

Upon your whiteness, 

Curved paths for the moonlight. 

To escape — 

We, moving in bodies that change constantly, 
Create and recreate them 
As images — 

Apollo . . . Daphne . . . Daphne . . . Apollo. 


i7 


LONELINESS 


i 

I cannot come again. 

When spring buds forth; 

I shall not wake to see 
The sun turn north. 

I am but flesh and blood. 

Be pitiful and know — 

I am not wind nor sun, 

Nor rain nor the blown snow. 

Here are my arms, my hands, 
Here are my lips, my eyes: 
Meeting with yours they find 
All that is paradise. 


18 


II 


Rain! — 

Beating on the window pane 
Lightly as a wind-whipped thread 
Through the hours I lie abed — 

Who would have thought that I 
Should love your whimpering cry 
Better than bright sunlight driven 
Prom the deep blue courts of heaven? 

Leaves! — 

Swinging high against the eaves, 

With a whispering sound that rides 
On the wind like far off tides — 

Who would have thought that I 
Should wake to hear your cry 
With quick tears that you made less 
The pain of my loneliness? 


Wind! — 

Shrilling at the broken blind, 

Baying like a sullen hound 
Night’s still quarry from the ground — 
Who would have thought that I 
Laughed aloud to hear your cry, 
Laughed because you shut from me 
Dreams of all that cannot be? 


19 


Ill 


The winds blow as they list, 

And love goes where it will, 

And I would go where my heart is 
And sit on a lonely hill — 

A lonely hill where slow rain falls 
And the brown leavtes bend and drip, 

And I would drink with the brown leaves 
The rain-drops, sip by sip. 

And I would lay me down with them 
When they fall upon the ground 
One by one, the whole night long 
With a hollow rustling sound. 

And I would sleep with the brown leaves 
Nor know that winter came, 

Nor see the sun upon the snow — 

An iris of blue flame. 

I would sleep well and wake at last 
At the melting of the snow, 

Drowsy-eyed, until the sun 
Had warmed me with its glow. 

Clean of body and clean of heart . . . 
Then, never remembering 
Love, or you, I would rise and go 
And follow the feet of Spring. 


20 


FULL MOON 


Moon after moon and still no weariness. 

Decay upon the tumbrils of the hills, 

Leaves dropping after rain and the ripe specked fruit; 
The withering earth and still no heaviness. 

The sky filled with one moon and silver moons 
For the dull eyes, moon-silver dropped 
Upon the long lagoons; the arms, the fingers 
Touching the delicate edging of the moon. 

Who should come delicately across the grass? — 

Who? that is what you ask, forget and ask again. 

But that one never comes . . . moonrise 
And fall of the tide; long waves of moons 
But that one never comes. 


21 


THE SINGING MASK 


How shall I please you now with any song, 

When I am that to you of my desire, 

And in words can but half repeat the whole 
That sings to you upon my lifted lips 
And in the shadowed hollows of my breast? 

There is a music lost in weariness 
Between the lives of body and of soul; 

The music that all lovers in the world 
Hear once and after hearing then forget 
When they have slept and supped and looked again 
Upon each other with their madness stilled; 

That all high lovers fallen out of time 
Cry to each other riding on the wind. 

This is the music I would find for you, 

Yet cannot press its sweetness out of thought 
Baffled by loss of memory in rebirth. 

And so not giving you the song I would — 

What is there but myself? If you can hear 
Their faint far voices curling in the wind 
When you half drowse, not knowing if my face 
Is caught with images or palpable, 

We shall awake to find all we have lost; 

To know desire unwinds the Secret Coil 
That is its own illusion to the end. 


22 


TWO MIRRORS 


You who have timorous dreams, 

Use art as a mirror 

To reflect dreams you cannot hold, 

Flying shapes penumbrous in darkness. 
Dreams blurred by a breath, 

Dreams broken by a heart beat. 

You live in them; you cannot gather yourself 
Out of your dreams. 

I have a mirror — 

My heart holds an image of you. 

Dream with me a little while — 

Life is so short— 

The dream called love. 


THE MEMORY 


Once I lived as a poplar tree 
And wore pale shining leaves of green. 
The god who gave this flesh to me, 
These pulses trembling to be free, 
Wasted a gift; the air between 
Grey earth and heaven is my demesne. 

Whence came to me the still small face 
My mother saw when I was born? 

I see within my mirror’s space 
The wild eyes of a faery race. 

Another image I have worn 

That from me at my birth was tom. 

I cannot feel the human thrill, 
Remembering an older vow. 

My will is not a human will; 

My heart no mortal love can fill. 

If you would hold and clasp me now, 

O be the wind that shakes the bough! 


24 


I BEND DOWN TO LIFE 


Life is a silver pool. 

I look therein and cry, 

“Heigho,” to the dreams that die 
When a cold wind shakes the pool. 

Life is a silver pool; 

I look therein to see 
If love can wait for me — 

And I see . . . the face of a Fool.. 

Out of the silver pool, 

It looks up to the sky, 

To see if God rides by — 

The patient face of ... a Fool.. 


THE DARK LADY 


Not for me 

Waits the Fountain and the Tree 
Hung with yellow bells of bloom. 
Other gardens may be fair; 

Other gardens may be rare, 

But no other one can be 
Like this garden unto me. 

Once, I paced it dim and shady; 
Now a dark and haughty lady 
Owns the garden and the Tree 
And the gate is barred to me. 

And again I shall not see 
Leaping Fountain, branching Tree 
Hung with yellow bells of bloom. 
I have lost and she has won 
And the Fountain in the sun, 

And the garden, flower and tree, 

Are her dowry to hold 

With the grass and clotted mold. 

Yet for me — 

Shall be Fountain, shall be Tree, 
When the lady’s flesh is mold 
With the swaying bells of gold. 

I have made their image rise 


To the fields of Paradise; 

And the Fountain and the Tree 
Hung with yellow bells of bloom, 
Shall be mine eternally. 


THE BELL-BRANCHED TREE 


I have been beautiful but am no more, 

For I have eaten of the bitter core 
Of the ripe fruit of love and seen 
All that breaks faith and comes between 
Lovers after first-a-while; 

Seen the fading of the smile, 

Outstayed welcome till I heard 
The end of all things ... in a word. 

This has stolen the dark fire 
From my eyes and all desire 
From my lips and set faint signs 
On my throat in spider-lines. 

These could have escaped decay 
If my lover had known the way; 

If my lover had said to me: 

There is a high Bell-branched Tree 
That we knew long before our birth, 

Neither above nor under earth, 

Where between birth and birth we keep 
A timeless tryst in dream-lit sleep . . . 

Two Birds of Flame . . . When this dream’s done 
And all brown birds and moon and sun 
Fade out of mind, we two shall be 
Upon the high Bell-branched Tree. 


28 


TO A LOVER 


Much I wonder what you obscure. 

Here in the mellow sunlight’s haze, 

Beyond you open pavilioned ways 
To the springs of life, and yet you endure 
Solid, opaque, and there is no cure. 

Darkly, I see your head in the blaze 
Of the sinking sun. Do I stand in its rays 
Barring your way to the day-springs pure? 

I cannot look beyond or above 

Your flesh that measures the way of love. 

I see your lips and your stormy eyes 
But whether they and you are lies, 

I shall only know when my soul set free, 
Shatters the glass of my destiny. 

Once, there came to the open door 
Just at sunset, a stranger, tall. 

I did not see his shadow fall. 

Perhaps he came from the mist-blown moor 
Or up from the ocean’s painted floor; 

But in his voice I heard trumpets call 
And seraphs singing along the wall 
Of heaven, winds on a far off shore. 

And for an instant out of all time, 

I could discern the Golden Clime 


That your body obscures for me, 

Where the mind and the soul are free. 
Then you stepped through the open door; 
Gone was the Stranger from the moor. 


30 


VILLANELLE 


We feel foreboding, and an ancient pain, 

Fumes in our hearts, who must our love forego; 
Yet sweet are all love’s kisses kissed in vain. 

Now at the end when all delight is slain, 

And love’s caresses gone where none may go, 

We feel foreboding and an ancient pain. 

We set no snares where idly love had lain, 

Whose breasts were bared unto his shining bow; 
Yet sweet are all love’s kisses kissed in vain. 

Who were for roses — roses fey and fain, 

Mourn, now that Time tracks at our heels, a foe; 
Yet sweet are all love’s kisses kissed in vain. 

Who loved with budded flowers and April rain, 
See gray November rot the bloomy row; 

Yet sweet are all love’s kisses kissed in vain. 

Of love outworn, let there be no disdain; 

Love soon or late wears myrtle leaves of woe; 

We feel foreboding and an ancient pain; 

Yet sweet are all love’s kisses kissed in vain. 


3i 


THE STREET-SWEEPER 


Under the trees, 

Lazily, the Sweeper 
With his broom of twigs, 

Brushes the withered leaves over the pebbles. 

In the sunshine of early autumn, 

There is a rustling, 

A murmur, half complaining, 

And the tapping footsteps of the passers-by. 

The Street-Sweeper is kindly — 

Smiling a little in the sunshine 

As the brown leaves rustle 

When his broom of twigs gathers them. 


NARCISSUS 


White Narcissus drenching the air with heavy attar! 
White Narcissus on slender stems over blue water! 
White Narcissus shaking my heart with desire! 

Once more I see thy love-longing tragic — 

Thou, Narcissus, gazing amaze at thy beauty 
Until the gods in wrath, or in pity, 

Made thee too sweet a flower by mirroring waters. 

White Narcissus, when perfect beauty 
Finds and perceives itself perfect, knowing 
There is no other love, nay, none farther; 

Then to a flower by Time’s flowing waters 
Beauty is changed, and seeks forever its image. 

White Narcissus drenching the air with heavy attar! 
White Narcissus shaking my heart with desire! 
White Narcissus on slender stems over blue water! 


33 


PRAYER 


Lord, in Thy House 
Where all the dazzled hours 
Fall as sweet flowers, 

Are there green boughs? 

Are there leaves soft and fine, 

A sun to shine? 

Lord, of Thy Grace, 

Where all the nights and days 
Are sweet hymns for Thy praise* 
Is there one face 
Unchanged by years with Thee* 
That is for me? 


ROSES AND RAIN 


There will never be anything again 
As beautiful as you and roses and rain 
Together; 

Never anything as soft and wonderful 
As your kisses that fell 
Like the leaves of the rose. 

Now the roses and the rain will tell 
Secrets more than theirs to the sky. . . 
God! why must I die? 


ROSE LEAVES 


The rose leaves fall 
Noiselessly 
Upon the grass 
When the South Wind 
Stirs the shadows 
Of twilight. 

May I pass 
As a rose 

When the dark comes on, 
Leaving 
A rose petal 
To greet the dawn? 


THE GREY LAND 


How shall I find you, My Beloved, 

Since I am dead? 

Do you walk the same paths? 

The mornings and the sunsets — 

Are they those we once looked upon? 

And the moon ... is she still gentle in Springtime? 
Have you forgotten my laughter and my kisses? 

In the Grey Land, 

My soul goes wandering among the shades 
Asking one question of the dead: 

How shall I know my lover in this land 
Where the shapes of the dead change ceaselessly? 

You will know me by one token — 

My lips; 

They are burning with desire for you, Beloved. 

Death has not murdered my passion, 

Nor the cold earth dimmed the remembrance of our 
embraces. 

How miserable to be dead, Beloved! 

There are no fair words; 

There is only the power to remember — 

And time is lost. 


37 


It may^be a thousand years or a day since I left you — 
For one day joins upon another without sun or moon. 
There is no dew to wet my eyelids 
Nor any honey for my lips. 


38 


VERSES FOR 
JAPANESE PRINTS 



A PAIR OF LOVERS 

Moronobo 

I shall be shapen 

Out of the dust of your heart 

At the Last Day. 

The resurrection will be 
Finding myself yours again. 


41 


A COURTESAN 


Yeishi 

Bending in weariness, 

Your head 

Evokes a grave procession — 
Women consumed with beauty; 
Night-flowers 

Drugged with the moonlight. 


42 


A WOMAN SEATED ON A VERANDAH 


Utamaro 

Body to body — 

I die in your desire. 


A YOUNG GIRL 


Sukenobu 

Dew-flowers at dawn . 

Dreams 

Perishing 

Of their own passion. 
In the grey light, 

Your face 
Vanishing. 


TWO LOVERS 
Koriusai 


Cool delicate touches 
Fall upon me — 

The silk of your lashes. 


THE COURTESAN HANA-OJI WITH 
ATTENDANTS 

Kionaga 

Bending over the iris, 

I am sick for your caresses, 

And for the instant 
That escapes them. 


46 


THE COURTESAN HANA-OJI LOOKING 
OVER THE SUMIDA 

Shuncho 

Incense before a shrine! 

Your lips burning in my brain. 

Bodies are dust; 

Love is immortal. 


47 


TWO LOVERS IN THE FIELDS: SPRING 
CUCKOO 

Koriusai 


Throw blueness over me with your hands; 
Kiss the dew of your breath upon my lips 
And I shall be • . . Spring. 


48 


LADIES AND CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN THE 
WIND 

Toyokuni 

Over the flowers in my garden 
There is a bitter wind 
Blowing, always blowing; 

It is the thought 

That you and I shall lose each other. 


49 







* 









THE WAY DOWN 
TO THE SEA 





















» 
















THE WAY DOWN TO THE SEA 
The Hill 


Here on the hill the scent of sweet-fern rises 

From bruised leaves, crushed by the sun-warmed body, 

Like sound; it roars a little, beating in the nostrils. 

The serried leaves are fronds of giant trees 
To the eye turned upward to the sun, body 
Stretched out on the tufted grass of sea-hills. 

A cricket clouds the sun; the spider’s cordage — 
Ship-rigging against the sky; all things are changed — 
The scale gigantic — for an angle of vision. 

Lift your shoulders leaning warm hands on dry grass; 
And the horizon slips to place; the fern shrinks; 

The swaying hills keep their size, the trees 
Their height. Now one sees the burned marshes 
Like ground-flame running far out to meet 
Beyond white sands, irised, the thin blue sea-line. 

Stand! again the world changes; the hills are hillocks; 
The foreground narrows: the cupped sky drops upon 
A plain of sea; the sun beats fine spun mists 
Up from salt marshes. Through them, curving purple — 
The way down to the sea . . . the sun dazzles 
Eyes that close against the sting of light; 

The blood starring the sun beneath closed eyelids. 

Why do I see your face 
Everywhere that I look? 

I turn the slopes of the hills 

53 


As the leaves of a well-loved book; 

And over the ragged fern 
And firs, sea-blown, slant-wise, 

Always and everywhere — 

Only your face, your eyes. 

The Path 

This is the way down to the sea — this grass 
Beaten into the sand, a line of shadow; 

The smooth blades — bent not broken — 

Pressing down the sand; my feet passing 
Do not sink a little. Here gulls’ shadows fall 
Untroubled by the wind; their shadows mark the grass 
With deeper purple than windy tufts of sea-grass 
Filter upon the dunes. Here there is lushness 
Thinning where the white dimes open, hollow 
Their breasts to the soft blows of the sea; where 
There is no more violet of the wild pea, where 
The gentian bluer than wild blue hyacinths, 

No longer tosses up a bluer spray 
Of butterflies; where the wild bee is silent — 

Having heard waves beat on the sand so long, 

And before him, other bees — silent because of honey, 
Wine-honey, sweeter than honey of hill-flowers. 

Do not walk here . . . only swift graceful things 
Should know this path, running with panting breath, 
Cloudily blinded by the distilled sun. 

How should I come to you 
But by a path like this? 

What if I lost the way? 

What if my feet should miss 
The narrowed dip of the grass, 

The shadows, purple and blue? 


54 


What if I found the sea 
But never the path to you? 

The Dunes 

The long curves of the grass are brighter green 
Against the ribbons of their shadows on the sand 
Here on the dunes. How could one tell the sea 
Had curved its arms around them? They are warm 
Under the sun. There are no sea-weeds caught 
On sharp grass blades, on sea-yellow poppies 
With grey-green stalks; there is no whorled spume here 
But dune on dune, white sand, the tufted grass; 

Warm hollows of shadow where the sun lies 
Purple at noon, blue when the day-tide turns. 

If fingers stir among the woven grass roots, 

Under the dead blades, the withered stalks are brackish; 
Salt crackles; there is a powder of fine shells, 

Glisten of salt in the sand when the sunlight 
Follows your hand . . . the sea has been here. 

I look down upon life 

As I look on the dimes in the sun. 

If you were waiting there, 

Should I know the appointed one 
Where I would drowse and sleep, 

And suddenly wake to see 
Clearly, your eyes, your lips, 

Bending down over me? 

The Sea 

The way down to the sea ends here in mist. 

The hollowed dunes are hidden by the mist; 

The world is mist; the empty air is filled. 

55 


The stars are gone, the moon; the sky drips whiteness. 
Under the soft white paws of the mist, 

The winds are stilled; they curl upon the sea. 

Upon their breasts, the mist lies heavily. 

Sound breaks the whiteness . . . the roar of the sea. 
Quiet your heart beats! there are shadows here — 

The pomp of ancient sails purpled with ooze of shells, 
Saffron sails of cities sunken beneath blown sand. 

Here are great galleys heaving on tideless mist; 

Brown, naked rowers, strange, swarthy men. 

Here are high prows of ships with brailed square-sails. 
Quiet your heart-beats! there are shadows here; 

There are red lips . . and eyes green as the sea — 
Beauty out of flesh, terrible beauty . . . 

The mist is warm, spun through with a cloud of hair. 
Quiet your heart-beats! there is one you remember; — 
One who should have come down to the sea, 

White-armed with mist-white breast. There is no shadow 
That brings her image to stir mist-heavy eyelids. 

The sea roars dully; now the cold foam of the waves 
Splashes the mist; the sea lifts you — rising, 

Swinging upon cross-surges, the body yields . . . floats 
out . . . 

There was one who should have come down to the sea . . . 
“Many waters cannot quench love neither can the floods 
drown it." 

I shall go down to the sea 
Alone as all men go: 

I shall go down in peace 
Because of the wonder I know; 

And I shall not fear the dark 
Nor dread the unknown land 
Because of remembering 
The sudden touch of your hand. 


56 


CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI 

ROUMANIAN SCULPTOR 



CONSTANTIN BRANCUSI: ROUMANIAN 
SCULPTOR 


L’Ouvrier 

An Olympian cave, marmoreal, still; 

The breathing of giants, 

The white ray undivided. 

Fluted columns, vaulting 
From pavilions of the air. 

Herons of the Moon flying through velvet mist; 

The Golden Bird, Sun-bird, Bird of Paradise 
Dazzling in upper space. 

Stupendous masses of rock; 

Old wood mellowed, seasoned by time, 

Hewn from sea-forests. 

Marble — two lovers, the Embracers; 

Bronze — a head accented by a single eyebrow; 
Again marble — a smooth head; Brancusi speaking: 
“With this form I could move the universe .” 


L’Homme 

Pan thewed with sinews of ilex trees; 
A faun’s head, black curls, 

(One suspects onyx horns). 

A beard touched with white; 


59 


Darkness between two white fingers; 
The throat — a column; 

Quick hands, gestures 
Faultless of intention, 

Flinging aside knowledge, 

Reaching for perfection 
As a child reaches for a flower; 
Dissolving wisdom 
Tragically for the wise. 


L’Arbre 

In the Forest of St. Germain, he caressed a tree trunk: 
“This is my brother. 

With only a little change in my substance, 

I could take root in the ground, 

Grow motifs instead of cutting them in marble. 

The sap in me would grow a new form of tree trunk. 

I would spread out my branches over lovers 
When they lie down upon the leaves.” 


Le Portrait 

Papier ivoire, blank, a satin glaze, 

“A Madame, Votre ami 
Constantin Brancusi. 

I am sending you my portrait, 

Papier ivoire , blank, a satin glaze; 

I could not please you 

With lies of the sun or of pencil. 

All that I am to you is here for you; 

You will see me as I would have you see me. 


60 


I shall not ask you how you will precipitate my like¬ 
ness; 

I trust you.” 


Diner Avec Brancusi 

A glow in the Olympian cave. 

Faggots are blazing 
(Brancusi built the fireplace), 

Fat cocks are roasting. 

Brancusi whips the salad delicately against a wooden 
bowl. 

We salute the table ... an Asteroid 
Caught snowy from frozen spaces of the sky. 

(Plaster freshly trowled by Brancusi, 

Damp to the touch.) 

Upon its whiteness, 

Color of flame and twilight — 

Capuchins , petals of scarlet 
Sinking in twilight. 


Brancusi pours the wine into the glasses. 

He has forgotten his cool marbles. 

The wine bubbles, crimson and amber; 

Fruits shine on fig leaves — 

Pomegranates, peaches like Chinese silk. 

Fragrance sifts through the fumes of wine and fruit. 
Brancusi is grinding coffee 
In a cylinder of Turkish brass. 

One sees cloudily, 

A faun’s head, black curls, curved onyx horns, 
Brancusi smiling. 


61 


Gravitation loosens its clutching; 

The roof of the cavern has become moonlight; 

We rise slowly, beating the air rhythmically 
With small cloven hoofs; 

Slowly as befits mortals who have put on 
Godship for the moment, 

Following Pan, turning a coffee grinder of Turkish brass, 
Speaking the tongue of dreams, 

Of the lion and the lizard, 

We arrive 
On Olympus. 


62 


WINDS IN WILD GRASS 





WHAT YOU SHALL SAY 


Do not say of me: She was 
Beautiful or kind or good. 

Say: There was an April song 
Once — she heard and understood. 


THE KING O’ SPAIN’S DAUGHTER 


When I leaned over a pool of black water, 

I saw in the blackness the King o’ Spain’s daughter. 

Her lips were a rose and the rose was bright red; 

All the birds of the air, they flew round her head, 

Her hair, it was streaming about me as light 
As a boll of milkweed on soft airs of the night. 

Her hands were as white as the coat of a moth, 

And her gown was of gossamer spun into cloth. 

There came down a wind-breath that ruffled the pool 
And leaves were thrown down like the words of a fool. 

I blew with my breath and cleared them away 
And the wind climbed up-land to race and to play. 

I looked in the pool to seek out her face 
And saw but a tangle of marshweed like lace, 

And never again in a pool of black water 
Have I seen the blue eyes of the King o’ Spain’s 
daughter. 


66 


THE FAERY LADY 


The pool was dark with shadows 
That fell from the cedar tree, 

And nobody ever came there 
But one young slim Lady. 

The cedar kept the silence; 

The wind never made a stir, 

And the only sound that came there 
Was the whisper she brought with her. 

Once she knelt on the marble 
And dabbled a small white hand, 

And a goldfish came to nibble 
The gold of her marriage band. 

Once she sighed to the cedar, 

And once her heartbeat came; 

But she never spoke nor murmured, 
And she never told her name. 

The groundling birds will weary, 

And the creeping mole on the hill; 

But the Nowhere Land is forever — 
And the Lady walks there still. 


When bird and mole are gathered 
With the wise man and the fool, 

She will dabble her hand in the water. 
And a goldfish rise from the pool. 


68 


WHEN THE BEES SWARM 


Nay! and keep your pity from me; 
Give me neither meat nor sup, 

Just a little comb of honey 
For your hives are brimming up. 

I do not beg the crumbly crusts 
That mark the weary miles, 

But I want the taste of honey — 

For I’m thinking between whiles 

Of the little springtime meadows 
Running down to meet the sea, 

Where the lusty bees were humming 
’Round my black-haired love and me. 

I, who lost my white-browed darling — 
Why should I be caring now 
For the stony roads I’m walking, 

For the rain upon my brow? 

One road is as good as others — 

Why should I be thinking hard 
Where some dusty road will lead me, 
When the road to him is barred? 

Little now to me it matters 
By the brambles in the cold, 


Whether it be dawn or starlight, 
If the year be young or old. 

Only when I hear bees humming 
In a sunny summer’s drouth, 

I am hungered for the dripping 
Of new honey in my mouth. 


WHEN YOU WERE TINKER PAUDEEN 


When you were Tinker Paudeen 
And I was red-haired Nell, 

We couched upon the heather 
In Sannox’s purple dell. 

O then the blood-red morning 
Was made for purest bliss; 

The ardour of the morning wind 
Was netted in a kiss. 

And we were laved and freshened, 
And weariness forsook 
Within the bubbling torrents 
Of Sannox’s roaring brook. 

A whang of cheese — we shared it; 
A crust of bread — no more; 

Then, brook and dell behind us, 
The highroad stretched before. 

I was your mate, your woman; 
You were my man Paudeen, 

Nor Book nor Ring had bound us 
But instinct sweet and clean. 


7i 


O well I do remember 
The magic that we found. 
Sometimes Paudeen the Tinker, 
Within your eyes is drowned. 

And sometimes there slips from me 
The lesson learned so well, 

And insolent and loving, 

I am your red-haired Nell. 

God bring all souls their heaven! 
But give us, Lord, the fells. 

Let blood-red morning find us 
With kisses in the dells. 


SAINT YVES 


At Kervarsin, in Brittany — 

God save us } good Saint Yves! — 
There lived the greatest of all saints 
That ever walked alive. 

There is a church at Minihy 
Whereon his will is carved 
That gives the poor of Brittany 
The fortune of Yves Heloury. 

God rest his soul! the greatest saint 
That ever walked alive. 

At Kervarsin, in Brittany, 

The beggars by the score 

Came knocking all the day and night 

Upon the good saint’s door: 

And none were ever turned away 
And all had food and rest; 

And every loaf that Saint Yves gave 
His own hands served and blessed. 

At Kervarsin, in Brittany, 

Each beggar in the lane 
Will find another by his side 
In bitter cold and rain; 

And when he turns beside the door 
To which his feet were led, 


Retreating through the cold and gloom, 
He sees a tonsured head. 

At Kervarsin, in Brittany — 

God save us, good Saint Yves! — 
You still may find the greatest saint 
That ever walked alive. 

On every heart in Minihy 
His holy name is carved; 

And all the poor of Brittany 
Still bless the name — Yves Heloury. 
God rest his soul! the sweetest saint 
That ever walked alive. 


FOLK SONGS 


i 

The Yellow Violet 

I was little and my love went by. 

He had eyes the color of the sky; 

He had hair the color of the sun, 

I gave him violets one by one. 

For his eyes, I gave violets blue; 

He gave a kiss and said he’d be true. 
The yellow violets were for his hair; 

He went away and left me there. 

Now the old women have lied to me — 
The yellow violets mean jealousy, 

But the young maids have told me true 
Your heart’s love is the violet blue. 


ii 

Marie La Rose 

Old Marie La Rose! 

Singing, days she goes; 

Gold earrings in her ears 
Tremble when she turns and hears. 
Once at young Marie’s 


Wedding, golden bees 
Lit within her eyes; 

Old Marie would please 
Just herself to sing 
And dance like a young thing. 
Was she once a rose , 

Old Marie La Rose? 


76 


APPLES 


There was a king yclepted Solomon 
Who loved the firs of Lebanon; 

Cedar his chariot axle trees, 

But he from apples got his ease. 

And of like mind with Solomon, 

I watch them glistening in the sun, 

Ripening their juices to delight, 

And half recall the Shulamite. 

I think they were a lovely row 
Of dancing women long ago 
That now by nature's alchemy, 

Shine out and dance upon a tree. 

Their smooth curved cheeks that blush so red 
With laughing lovers lay abed 
But through great joy and reverence 
Preserved primeval innocence. 


7,7 


4 ‘WHAT WILL YE SEE IN THE SHULAMITE?” 

The Shulamite! the Shulamite! 

The churchly fathers felt the stir 
Within the curtains of their flesh, 

Of all the ivory towers of her. 

And they have given her a name 
That was a Flower in Galilee; 

And they have given her a name 
That One hung high on Calvary. 

Now let me know the World’s Desire 
By Carmel or by Lebanon — 

The Shulamite! the Shulamite! — 

The Temple of King Solomon! 


78 


LOST SPRING 


I fell asleep. 

April’s cool hands 

Brought me no visions of her green-clad lands. 

I was too weary to awake. 

No bird could break 
My sleep with whispering 
Of love or Spring. 

What could there be 

More than the ecstasy 

Of sleep . . . and sleep . . . and sleep? 

When I came back — 

Waking upon the obliterated track, 

As one who hesitates upon the brink of what may seem 
In the delirious night, 

Only another dream within a dream, 

April had gone; 

And gone her pale day-moon. 

Nor was there any day 
Stayed of the haw-blown May: 

The summer’s dawn 

Sudden, a wave upon the mown 

Bare meadows burning under a midsummer noon, 

Burning at zenith in a haze of light. 

The Spring was lost— 

I would not see her green 

Velvet the river banks and nearing hills. 


79 


I would not taste the night-cooled dew that fills 
First flowers of May, deep-mossed. 

I had been blind 

While trees put on their samite like a queen. 

I would not find 
The lost sweet flowers — 

Nor know what shrouded sleep 
Hid in the hours 

Of sleep . . . and sleep . . . and sleep. 


80 


4 ‘ARE THERE NOT OTHER REGIONS THAN 


THIS ISLE?” 

No wild bees flew there. 

On the paths that led 
Past walls and windows 
Listening for her tread, 

Weeds, rank and bloomless, 
Cast their winged spore; 

Rust stained the threshold 
Of the long-closed door. 
Silence made answer 
To the wind and rain: 

Her hands will never 
Lift to you again. 

Yet there were footfalls — 
Tappings of light sound, 
Haunting the quiet 
That reigned there profound. 
Subtle low laughter 
As within her throat, 

Joy’s tireless pleasaunce 
Caught and warmed the note. 
For love unsepulchured, 

In the walls made stir 
To bring her presence 
To the listener. 


81 


IN THE MUSE’S HOLLOW HILL 


In the Muse’s hollow hill, 

I lay still 
Listening 

To the songs that I might sing: 

I heard rhyme 
Beating time — 

Her own voice answering. 

In the Muse’s hollow lands, 

On wan sands, 

Languishing 

For the songs that I might sing: 
I heard rhyme 
Break the chime — 

And her sweet voice perishing. 

In the Muse’s hollow hill, 

I lay still 
Listening 

To the songs I might not sing: 
Out of rhyme, 

Out of time — 

To no voice answering. 


I SAW MY LOVE GO BY 


I saw my Love go by 
When the moon was hid 
In the morning sky. 

I saw my Love’s sad eyes; 
When the stars were white, 

I heard her slow sighs. 

Once she came to my breast 
As the fall of rain — 

Never breaking my rest. 


She will not for Love’s sweet — 
So wistful, frail she is — 

Let me kneel at her feet. 

She will not for love’s pain, 
Come sliding to my arms 
At any dawn again. 



INTO DIMNESS 


I heard the wild loon and the catbird cry 
Over Sagamore Lake, and knew that I 
Heard the ancient call of race 
Bidding me to my own place. 

I am the root of the yellow willow , 

The stem of the lily leaf; 

There cannot come to my marsh-grass pillow 
The cry of a human grief . 

I heard the bluejay scream and the squirrel chitter 
On the edge of the wood, and felt the bitter 
Cold of the mist upon my face 
Bidding me to my own place. 

I am the root of the yellow willow , 

The stem of the lily leaf; 

There cannot come to my marsh-grass pillow 
The cry of a human grief. 


84 


ELEMENTAL 


Air and Earth and Fire and Water, 
Hunt me with your tinkling laughter. 
I am neither maid nor woman, 

Only in my semblance human; 

Empty as a shaken bowl 
Of a torturing human soul. 

Earth and Air and Fire and Water, 

I am your own wayward daughter. 
Human beauty dies in shame! 

Human love is cruel flame! 

But the Elements Immortal 
Hold the keys to Beauty’s portal. 


On the moors, 

On the purple heather-floors, 

As a white doe, I shall run, 

Past the hunters in the sun; 

And no eye shall see me pass, 

Nor a footfall bend the grass. 

With the tide, 

As a dolphin I shall ride 

Where the green wave coils and dips, 

Where the sea foam purls and slips. 



With the wind, 

With the seagulls far behind 
Crying: “Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow! 
Do not borrow, do not borrow 
Human joy, lest on the morrow, 
Feathered wanderers such as we, 
You shall cry beside the sea: 
Sorrow, sorrow, sorrow, sorrow!” 


Love, I followed where you set 
Rushlights in a blinding net; 
Tried to comprehend a sin, 

And a human soul to win, 

While the shape and shell of me 
Withered like a dying tree. 

Let me go! 

For your love I cannot know. 

I am neither maid nor woman, 
Only in my semblance human; 
Empty as a shaken bowl 
Of a torturing human soul. 



MICHAEL COLLINS 


There is no sap in me 
Quivering like the green tree, 

Nor any stir that moves 
As the life in the dark grooves 
Of the soil beneath my tread: 

Spring awakes yet I am dead. 

Never wind through blossomy boughs, 
Brings sweet savour to my house 
Where new grief has shut me in. 
There no flute notes nor the thin 
Reeds of piping marshes come; 

There my heart lies still and dumb 

No heat of summer weather 
Shall break my icy tether; 

Nor the bitter poppy’s kiss 
Bring me to short easefulness. 

When the winter’s frost and cold 
Warps the sky and cracks the mold, 
On the hillside here, alone, 

I shall stand a grim black stone; 
Without sight and without sound, 
Sinking, sinking in the ground. 


I shall sink to where he lies 
With his drowsy-lidded eyes; 

I shall find cool hands to soothe 
All the marvel of the smooth 
Brows that wear their laurel well. 
I shall find a voice to tell 
That on earth our dreams are fed 
By the glory of the dead. 


THE CHRISTMAS TREE 


It is midnight: 

Only the owls are stirring in the frosty bam. 

The house is still: one cannot hear the breathing in the 
upper chambers. 

Upon the hearth, 

The moonlight meets the red of the dying fire. 

Together they explore the arm chairs of mahogany, 

The massive pieces carved in garlands of fruit, 

And stiff flowers. 

Together they dwell upon 

Fixity and dignity incarnate in polished wood, 

Upon glass pale as moonstones, 

Upon tall candlesticks 
Fringed with prisms. 

Upon andirons couchant like watchdogs. 

Upon a Christmas Tree spattered with tinsel, 

Ribboned with scarlet, hung with silver stars, 

Hung with apples of Eden, red, blue, and gold. 

The candles are burnt out; the gifts are no longer 
there. 

Silently the Tree broods remembering 
The cold hillsides, the shining fields of snow, 

The raking winds, 

The trickles of sap in April, 

The long peace of summer. 

The bright glitter of fall, 


89 


The soft tears of the rain, 

The first caress of the snowflakes. 

Silently the Tree broods, remembering twilight, 

While around it, 

Wood-magic whirls in green eddies of remembrance. 

Then the end of it all . . . the sharp axe. 

The horror, the journeying, the sudden glory, 

The laughter of children. 

Now . . . oblivion: 

The flame devouring the bare branches, 

For one does not carry Apples of Eden down into the 
earth 

(Albeit they in time become dust), 

’ Nor silver stars, nor bandings of scarlet. 

Hush! in the antique room there is a sound, 

Tiny, pointed, elf-like, fantastic, 

The Soul of the Christmas Tree is departing. 

Tick, tick, the needles fall on the polished floor; 

Tick, tick, by twos and threes, they drop from the 
withered boughs. 

Their sap is dried into a fragrance 
That weighs upon the air. 

The moonlight is drunken and reels among the branches, 
And makes each needle a new star 
Falling through infinity. 

Tick . . . tick . . . 

It is midnight; 

The embers make no sound, 

Only the owls are stirring in the frosty bam. 

Tick . . . tick . . . 


90 


THE “WINTER SONG” 


In Strasbourg, the Tricolor streams on the ancient 
square; 

In Dover, St. George’s cross lies crimson upon the 
wind; 

Beyond the sea, there are stars above the sunrise 
Upon tall ships in Atlantic harbors. 

But I am dreaming of another flag. 

In Praha, in golden Praha, 

There is a new flag of freedom upon the streets, 

As the soldiers march singing the “Winter Song” softly. 
Softly, softly it comes to my ears— 

The “Winter Song” in Praha rising and falling, 

Sung by the Siberian Legionaires, marching, marching. 

They are remembering Siberia. 

Here in Praha, they are remembering 
The cold steppes, the pain, the fighting, the dying; 
They are remembering their dead comrades 
After six years of roving and fighting. 

Softly, softly it comes to my ears — 

The “Winter Song” sung by the Siberian Legionaires 
In Praha. 


9i 


CONSOLATION 


From the Czech of Antonin Sova 

Through the darkness, 

The Good Shepherd drives his lambs 
Into my doorway. 

The light quivers silvering a hundred heads; 
The night is still; 

Still the willows and the falling waters. 

My dreams are tranquil — 

Sowing faint colors over the land. 

The lambs of my dreams lie beside me; 
(Pillowed on their fleeces one sleeps sweetly.) 
The Good Shepherd sits on my doorstep 
Weaving the warmth of His Presence 
Into the misty light, 

While the lambs of my dreams 
Lick my wounds, 

Wiping the blood away on their fleeces. 


92 


TO MAUD GONNE 
LIVING 

IN WILLIAM BUTLER YEAT’S MEMOIRS 

There is a little mist before my eyes to see you pass; 
The breath catches and the blood suddenly is still; 
And I am out of body and caught to a flame 
That bums before your beauty. 

He has made a tower 
And set you in a ring of subtle images, 

Made you more splendid than our Holy Ones; 

Made you what the blood leaps at — foreknowing 
All that the sleeper dreams. 


93 


EZRA POUND 


You, —who have given me strange music, 
Leave me dumb because of the voices 
Crying beyond you. 

I perish of silence — 

Die in the depths of a terrible stillness, 
Hearing no more, lovers in springtime 
Singing songs of love in the valleys, 

Singing of hands and lips meeting together. 


94 


OSCAR WILDE’S TOMB IN PERE LACHAISE 


A tomb for a poet! 

A tomb for a sinner! 

A tomb for an Irish gentleman! 

No, not this incubus of marble, this blurred symbol. 

Winged Assyrian beast with the dull brute face, 
Where — the rhythm, where — the graciousness, 
Cadences of remembered speech, gay wit, abundance? 

Upon the tomb a wreath of painted porcelain, 

A scarlet geranium flower tied with a thread — 

These are all that is here of you. 

Poet, 

Sinner, 

Irish gentleman. 


95 


CERTAIN PAINTINGS 


i 

The circus! 

Jazz, cymbals, the roller-coaster, 

Dancers, jugglers, lady trapeze performers. 

A bath of protoplasm. 

Jazz! 

Marionettes languishing 
On banks of green wool — 

A clown blowing a penny trumpet . 

ii 

The West! 

War bonnets, 

A desert sunset. 

Painted rocks, whirling sands, 

Buffalo Bill with cavalry. 

Tomahawks, Indians riding furiously: 

Horses plunging, guns cracking, 

Powder-smells, smoke, a pool of red on the sand; 
A frontier town, box-houses; 

A saloon, drunken men asleep — 

A tramp fiddling a jig tune . 

hi 

The jungle! 

A black cat creeping beneath young bamboos; 
Snarls! . . . another cat. 


Sunlight, a spotted snake, earthy sweet smells. 

Maroon flowers, orange-yellow flowers, blue flowers. 
Snarls! 

A black lily with a scarlet throat; 

A Medicine Man beating on a skin drum. 

IV 

Botticelli! 

Spring! 

Meadows of fine grass blades, 

Willow branches hanging over blue water, 

Rain upon white sails. 

Raindrops on still faces; 

Lovers asleep . . . 

A blind man with a violin playing Mascagni's Lodoletta. 


97 



I 






PATTERNED CLOTHS 






























THE MASKER 


Why did the Mummer, Life, leave all the masks 
Where I could find them in a glittering heap? 

I was so eager to forget my tasks, 

I wore them all before I fell asleep. 

Yet cannot understand how I should lose 
Myself in them — one was a laughing child; 

And one an empress kings would proudly choose, 

And one a wood-god beautiful and wild. 

But when you found me masked and said: “Have done 
With mummery and mimicry awhile,” 

And your eyes waited, eager for my smile; 

And your swift kisses on my fingertips 
Burned for the brighter burning of my lips — 

I tore the mask; there grinned — a skeleton. 


IOI 


HOW MUCH IS ILLUSION? 


I cannot think why I was tired so soon 
And made an end to all our pretty play. 

That I had asked you gave — pulled down the moon 
To please my whim, and yet love would not stay. 
Perhaps I was too glad and could not keep 
The high-pitched tune but for a little while; 

I let your kisses go — to drowse and sleep, 

And saw the goddess slip from out my smile. 

Though it is true I love you very much — 

All I protest can never faintly touch 

That which I am. Through weariness there stirs 

Around me all love’s deeds as worshippers; 

And if you do not bend to blow the flame, 

They will make you believe I am the same. 


102 


FOR LOVER 


You have awakened an old Self of me. 

I am some creature conjured at a word 
From those who slumber till a tone sets free 
A sleeping phantom — as the sense is stirred; 
And though you worship, love, as best you may 
The other selves are knocking at the door 
Of the blind senses, and I may not stay; 

And though I would — I can return no more. 

Tomorrow in your arms I shall awake 
A stranger dumbly questioning and shy; 

And any bond you forge — that I shall break 
And follow butterflies against the sky. 

So clasp me now — before this self has gone 
The lonely way love may not set upon. 


103 


PETITION 


Yea of Thy Mercy Lord this greatest boon; 

I who have drunk Thy largess fair and free 
Sue that Thou save me from Time’s misery 
That lays foul hands on beauty late or soon. 

Before chill years my burning heart shall swoon, 
Translate untouched to immortality 
My lovely gauds — I pray Thee piteously, 

Who guarded them until my ripened noon! 

Yea — let me come into Thy presence, Lord, 
Sweet-fashioned, lithe of limb, with breasts adored; 
Firm muscled waist, strong shining, milk-white thighs, 
Lips like sweet foliage and soft-coloured eyes. 

Yea of Thy pity, Lord, save from Time’s lust 
Thy handiwork; hell is to turn to dust. 


104 


WHEN I AWAKE 


Shall I find peace at last? I question late 
At night when flaring lamps stir in the wind. 

I could tell if I knew if I had sinned 
Or only lost my way and found a fate 
Where nought my thirst for beauty could abate, 
Or ache for loveliness; where resolves thinned 
To let the beat of barbarous drums that dinned 
A barbarous rhythm deafen at my gate. 

And if peace should not prove the thing it seems 
And being peace, be not the longed-for breast, 
Still there’s adventure one may not forsake; 

Still there’s desire beyond the tireless dream; 

And I am curiously sure of rest — 

And of your eyes and lips when I awake. 


REINCARNATION 


Beloved, if there stir within my womb 
New life of yours and you should come to die, 

Usurp that dwelling place and softly lie 
Secure beneath my heart in the warm gloom. 

There, petaled with such roses as no doom 
Of God deflowers, you shall know every sigh 
Of eagerness, that with swift days shall fly, 

Until spring’s tenderness brings bud to bloom. 

Be quiet in my narrow darkened house. 
Quick-breathing, dream new dreams and take sweet rest. 
And when your lips shall suck from my full breast, 
In that last giving memory — shall arouse, 

Recovering your songs through melody 
That is the blood, the flesh, the soul of me. 


106 


TEARS 


Today, today, I shall weep easeful tears 
Over my lovely self — for who shall find 
All that I was . . . ? Poor Love on earth is blind. 

So I shall fill a vase for all the years 
I knew myself, and as death’s summons nears, 

Cry on the streets: O I was fair and kind 
And there were moonlit ways within my mind; 

You would have loved me — will you take my tears? 

These drops are for the little child that knew 
The sun was hot, that skies were sometimes blue; 

And these are tears for shy sweet maidenhood, 

And some are for the ache within my blood. 

But take them all — today my eyes must weep 
For what was earth’s — God my spent soul will keep. 


107 


SOUND OF AUTUMN 


Rest! for my heart is quieted at last. 

Since with love’s breath it may no longer beat. 
Nor any rhythm of your own repeat, 

It lies like a bright pebble that is cast 
Into a pool and sees the days go past, 
Uncaring whether Time be slow or fleet; 
Hearing the muffled sound of Sorrow’s feet 
Treading the skies, illimitable, vast. 

Now Beauty’s outworn strays are set above 
The quick devouring passion that was love: 
Petals of lilies that the wind has sown, 

Ruined gold leaves falling from sapless boughs. 
Dead curls of ivy over a still house — 

Rest! for my heart is quiet as your own. 


108 


RAIN IN DECEMBER 


Grey Hag, tell me no more you are the Rain. 

I know the Rain, her step is dancing-light; 

She was my Well-Beloved day and night; 

And when she came to me with spring again 
I smelled the beds of spice where she had lain. 
My body’s soft familiar she has been 
And all her colors are by heaven washed clean. 
O you have lied to say you are the Rain. 

Your step is heavy and importunate — 

Leering grey witch, who drive my soul to hate 
With terror of your madness. You will beat 
Me down and pleach me to naked bone. 

Living or dead, I cannot bear your feet 
Above my heart. Go hence! Leave me alone! 


109 




THREE COLORS OF THE MOON 


“ WHERE THE MOON IS UNSHADOWED ” 




































THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER 


Everything exists in the Eye of the Beholder! 
Nothing happens that the Eye does not awaken. 
Life and death, and death and life forever, 

Poise their instant in the Eye of the Beholder. 


BLUE 


It is the Eye that lives first; it is the Eye that is the 
last to perish. In the darkness of the womb, the con¬ 
tinual vision of the eye moving through curtains of flesh, 
creates the enfolding vestment of the returning spirit. 
And when the spirit murmurs a farewell to the flesh, — 
in its first temple, in the delicate luminosity of the eye, 
it pauses for an instant upon the brink of the abyss. 

Translate to me, Beloved, the mysterious message that 
leaped from your eyes while still your eyes lived in that 
moment after your heart ceased to beat! 

Bending over you, I cried: “Beloved, Beloved!” You 
stirred not, your pulses were still, your hands lay power¬ 
less, your lips no longer jasper, moved not; your breath 
ceased to flutter as a wounded bird. “Beloved,” I cried 
again, and with a strange transmutation of the senses, 
your eyes heard and answered. Slowly they opened — 
living eyes in the face of the dead — their deep blue un¬ 
stained by dissolution, their gaze unfaltering, their radi¬ 
ance undimmed. A moment only, then beneath my im¬ 
ploring gaze, the lids fell, the dark lashes brushing the 
light as the gossamer filaments of the wings of midnight 
moths the penumbrous moonlight. And their message — 
lost, unwon, untranslatable forever. 

Denied this last proffered consolation, I tremble before 
the eternal blue of the sea, the deep sapphire of yawning 


clefts and chasms at twilight, before the pale blue of hya¬ 
cinths against lingering snows of Spring. I am unceas¬ 
ingly athirst for that blue that poured upon me its burn¬ 
ing intensity at the moment of dissolution, from your 
eyes. 


CRIMSON 


There came a time when I was conscious that I moved 
out of my swoon toward the brink of awareness. I may 
have been absent days, hours, minutes, or only an in¬ 
stant, before I was thrust back upon the threshold of 
that dream which is existence. At the moment of awak¬ 
ening, the familiar walls, the sombre tapestries, the an¬ 
cient portraits of my worship were no longer around me. 
They were lost within the grey vapour that stirred cease¬ 
lessly in writhen shapes and hollowed me within a grey 
sepulchre. Slowly the greyness thickened; a core of color 
gathered and lapped upon the violating mist. Over me, 
a Great Flower of a deep crimson color, and of a thou¬ 
sand interweaving petals, took shape and gave forth an 
overpowering perfume of indescribable sweetness. Again 
I swooned and again . . . but ever the Flower drew me 
back from the Black Pit. I swung as a pendulum swings 
between oblivion and awareness, while through the mov¬ 
ing mist the Flower deepened in color, pouring a glowing 
flame into my veins, a paradisaical fragrance into my 
nostrils. 

Suddenly I saw the Great Flower paling. Through the 
tenuous mist, I watched it whiten and grow opaque like 
an alabaster shrine when the light is withdrawn. Now 
there was only a trace of color; it had dripped from the 
outer petals; they had become like wax. A faint flush 
still suffused the heart of the blossom. Now that was 

ii 6 


fading. Like moving blood, the warm stain ebbed away; 
the Flower was marmoreal, pallid, a cave-lily, a moon- 
blossom, a thing ghostly and nocturnal. 

I was consumed with desire to touch this blossom, to 
draw once more upon my breath the jasmine odour of 
its fragrance. With unspeakable effort I lifted myself to 
the Flower. At the faint tremor of my breath, the petals 
loosened and fell upon my face soft as the touch of sun- 
blown roses, sweeter than the lost caresses of innocent 
lovers . . . And I knew — by what perception, whether of 
spirit or of sense, it is impossible to tell — that the Flower 
was the living flower of my heart, that the dye that 
stained its petals was my moving blood now sinking to 
everlasting quiet in my veins. 


BLACK 


The Black Vulture, Melancholy, sat on my breast and 
I was suffocated with the filth of his black pinions. All 
day he sat there and I breathed his poisonous breath. 
Then from the rim of the setting sun there flew to me 
the Angel Despair, whose eyes are of dull green jade. He 
banished the Black Vulture, Melancholy, and froze my 
blood to a turgid ichor in my veins. Two nights he sat 
at my side and on the third he touched my eyelids. I 
saw that in one hand he held the world and in the other 
a sealed crystal vial. He said, “Choose!” and I chose 
the vial, for on the world I could see the panoply of 
princes, the pageants of state and the glittering jewels of 
kings and queens. Then the Angel, Despair, broke the 
seal of the vial and poured a burning liquid between my 
lips. And the flesh and bones of me were dissipated to 
thin air. 

When I awoke my roots went down into the ground, 
my body stood upright in the sun. I was a tree grow¬ 
ing on a high mountain and those who came near to me 
were only the sun and the moon, the stars and the wind 
and the rain. 


118 





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